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Saturday, 9 November 2013

Ethical Practices

You know when you have so much to do you just don't know where to start? Well I have decided that I really can only do one effective thing at a time. So I am forcing myself to time manage one thing at a time because I am getting totally overwhelmed. I am desperately trying to finish my Grad Cert in Adult Lit and Num and I really want to hand in all my assessments in on Thursday. For one of my assessments I had to take a Maths class. Had major Maths anxiety before starting and I was desperate not to make a mistake. However I am only human and I did. Thankfully when we went back through the steps we found out the wrong step as a class and fixed it quickly. We were looking at Area. The task was to find out how much paint would be needed to paint the classroom and how much it would cost to paint it. Thankfully the students were totally engaged and really enjoyed themselves. They were deep in discussion, helping and encouraging each other and desperate to make sure they could achieve the task. So all in all it went very well. However I am happy to leave it to the professionals. One assessment down. Yeah. I have 2 to go.As my English students come to complete their major research projects I feel as though I am banging my head a little. They are so ingrained in copy and paste that I am constantly pointing out that the work they are

submitting is not their own. They must give recognition where they have used an idea or a direct quote from a source. Thankfully I have seen a lot of their writing over the past 5 months and I am able to recognise their 'voice' in their writing and I can point out exactly which sentences they have written and the ones they have just 're-worded' from somebody else. They are somewhat surprised at how I can do this and are surprised by the fact I can pick out a voice that is not their own and it is like a neon sign to me. I am sure there are lots of teachers nodding their heads in agreement. However they are usually very willing to go back to the text and give credit where credit is due.
So whilst I am on the topic of plagiarism I also have another bugbear. Recently I have become a huge advocate for images used on the web or in print and the importance of recognising and paying for these images. I have several friends who are photographers and there is a lot of skill and time that goes into producing these images. So I would like to share with you my favorite one and the ones I use most frequently.I hope you find these helpful.

The end of term is getting close and like most of you I am hanging on by my fingernails. Hang in there.Hope you have a great week.